Copywriting Tips for Creating Quality Content

“I want you to write a 600-word blog post in an hour and thirty minutes. Oh, and make sure it’s good. None of that ramen-noodle, set-it-and-forget-it stuff. I’m talking the foie-gras-with-a-side-of-beluga-caviar kind of copy.” Unless you’re Chef Ramsay when it comes to cooking up content, anyone who is a Copywriter, Content Strategist, Marketer, or has ever had to develop content knows that these sort of demands are becoming more prevalent, and less attainable each day.

Think about it. It’s become pretty easy for just about any person or business to start a blog, and the landscape has become so competitive that we’re not only tasked with producing better content, but more of it. It can be pretty intimidating, but there is a way to meet these demands head on and still produce quality content. It’s possible, but we’re going to have to change the way that you think about content writing as a whole, and implement a new plan. Let’s begin.

Your Content is the Essence of Your Business

In case you didn’t know, content is essential to establishing your website’s online presence. Understanding this is the first step in engaging with users in a meaningful way. Providing content for your site’s visitors is beneficial for many reasons, and the few I’d like to list here are:

Providing information about your business/services

Helping to engage with readers & potential customers

Differentiating your brand from others

I focus on these three because they very closely mirror interactions that would take place in a brick-and-mortar setting. You wouldn’t let someone visiting your store guess why they were there, and you certainly wouldn’t ignore a visitor once they'd entered. Neglecting to produce consistent, quality content is to neglect the needs of your guests. None of this is to mention that content plays a major role in determining where your site ranks in the search engine result page (SERPs).

Get Organized – Much of Blogging is Pre-Blogging

Now’s the time when you prepare to tackle your content. Thinking about these factors beforehand is going to make the difference once you start writing. There are four points to consider before starting the process. (Conveniently, they all start with the letter “t,” so, the “four Ts.”)

Tasks - Are there any particular “things” I have to do? Target specific keywords? Include specific images? Include specific links?

Topic - What’s going to be the focus of my content? (Be sure to enforce some boundaries here, too. Any additional ideas can be used for separate content. Stick with one topic.)

Trajectory (Angle) - How am I going to approach this piece? Is it providing value? Encouraging a sale? Entertaining the reader?

Tools - What resources will I use? Is there anything that will help make my writing process easier?

One tool that I like to use is OmmWriter. It occupies your screen, and eliminates all other distractions so that you can focus on what you want to say. Some cool features include various ambient soundtracks, calming backgrounds, and a number of different keystroke sounds.

Another is Hemingway App, which is a perfect for editing when you’re short on time, and need to publish content quickly.

Begin Broadly and Gradually Narrow Your Focus

I took an English class once, and my professor shared with us a very clever, and memorable analogy:

“Whenever you’re writing, think of your piece as a stripper.”

By this this point, I was interested to know more by what she meant. Was my professor insinuating that words and phrases should fall from the pages of my writing to the floor? Not quite. Her illustration was encouraging us to allure the reader into our writing. She continued:

“If the performer steps onto the stage already unclothed, the mystery is gone. Lead the reader where you want them to go with your writing.”

This principle can be applied to all parts of your blog through engaging titles, enticing Meta descriptions, and seductive body copy. I’m a visual learner, so arranging information into an inverted triangle helps me once I get started.

or a cool smokey triangle!

Save the good stuff for the end, similar to a fireworks displays, or dessert (or a call-to-action)! You’ll start to see that this not only captivates the reader, but also makes the creative process easier on you.

Start in Parts

It’s much easier to ingest information when it’s presented in smaller pieces. The same is true when communicating information. Every 20-page e-book, or 2500-word blog post, is made up of sections, paragraphs, sentences, words, and letters. Focus on your writing paragraph by paragraph, and then synthesize. It’s much easier to write a few paragraphs as opposed to an entire blog (in many cases).

In Closing

Once you start to think about content in the ways listed above, and implement a few of these strategies, it’s going to make a major difference in how quickly you can create.

Ready to ignite your content strategy or work with a content development team? Contact us today!